| The wish, that of the living whole | |
| No life may fail beyond the grave, | |
| Derives it not from what we have | |
| The likest God within the soul? | |
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| Are God and Nature then at strife, | 5 |
| That Nature lends such evil dreams? | |
| So careful of the type she seems, | |
| So careless of the single life; | |
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| That I, considering everywhere | |
| Her secret meaning in her deeds, | 10 |
| And finding that of fifty seeds | |
| She often brings but one to bear, | |
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| I falter where I firmly trod, | |
| And falling with my weight of cares | |
| Upon the great world's altar-stairs | 15 |
| That slope thro' darkness up to God, | |
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| I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, | |
| And gather dust and chaff, and call | |
| To what I feel is Lord of all, | |
| And faintly trust the larger hope. | 20 |
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